October 23, 2022

Tuesday’s city council meeting was relatively brief, lasting just 2 hours and 20 minutes. No single agenda item dominated the discussion. Instead, the meeting touched on several topics worthy of mention:

The neighborhood subcommittee which is chaired by Councilor Rita Mercier has taken its meetings on the road. The plan is to hold subcommittee meetings in conjunction with neighborhood group meetings. The first one was the Highlands Neighborhood Association which met on Monday night. Councilor Mercier gave a detailed report with many of the items raised at the meeting coming from former councilor Bud Caulfield who is a longtime resident of the Highlands.

A good portion of the council meeting was taken up by items raised at the neighborhood meeting, particularly traffic backups on Stevens Street caused by the dropping off and picking up of students at Lowell Catholic. (Lowell Catholic also includes the former St. Margaret’s grammar school which is adjacent to the LC High School campus). This was also the subject of a written response to an earlier Councilor Erik Gitschier motion on the same subject. The motion response stated that the Lowell Catholic principal, Maryellen Demarco, told the two police officer sent to discuss the matter that she “does not believe traffic is a major issue” nevertheless the officers made some suggestions about altering the school’s traffic patterns that might alleviate the occasional backups.

Councilor Gitschier was dissatisfied with the report and spent several minutes describing how he thought the traffic pattern should work. In response to that, Councilor Kim Scott said that her children are students at that school so she is familiar with the transportation issues and based on that knowledge, felt that Councilor Gitschier’s proposed solution was not feasible.

In the end, I believe Councilor Gitschier asked City Manager Golden to take another look at this so we’re likely to see it again.

To the people directly affected by traffic backups on Stevens Street this issue may be a big deal, but it is of little importance citywide. Still, it raises some broader issues about how the city operates.

One of the possible remedies discussed would involve altering the traffic flow onto Galligan Road, a small residential street that borders the school and connects Stevens Street to Wilder Street. Right now, there’s a driveway from the school onto Galligan Road but it is “exit only/right turn only” meaning cars leaving the campus must head towards Stevens Street. The police and others suggest that allowing cars exiting the campus to turn left on Galligan (towards Wilder Street) would help alleviate the congestion.

However, in 2017, when Lowell Catholic applied for a Special Permit to build a new academic building on its campus and to create the driveway onto Galligan Road, the Lowell Planning Board granted the permit on the condition that the new driveway “shall be exit only and right turn only.”

I don’t know what circumstances prompted the Planning Board to impose that restriction, but I’m guessing that it was concerns raised by neighbors in the vicinity of Wilder Street worried about an increased volume of traffic from the school or perhaps there was concern over a conflict with drop-off and pick-up traffic for the Washington School which is just around the corner on Wilder Street. Whatever the case, the Planning Board set that as a condition and the restriction was expressly stated in the Special Permit which was recorded at the registry of deeds.

But what’s to prevent that condition from now being ignored either by the property owner or by the city in seeking a solution to this more recent problem? (To be fair, it was the school’s principal who told the police of the restriction when they proposed a “left turn on Galligan” solution to the current problem).

In the bigger picture, how often are restrictions imposed by city boards later ignored? Such restrictions are often imposed in response to concerns raised by neighbors about a new project before the board, but if the conditions are not enforced after the project is completed, they are nothing but a placebo meant to temporarily dilute concerns that might prevent a project from going forward.

While these special permits are recorded at the registry of deeds, I don’t believe the city keeps an easily accessible master list of restrictions imposed on the use of properties. Without something like that and someone charged with monitoring and enforcing compliance with the restrictions, it’s easy for these conditions to be forgotten or ignored which undercuts the legitimacy of the board approval process.

******

Representatives from Lupoli Companies were at the council meeting to discuss their request to install an above-ground electrical box across the street from the new parking garage they’re building on Jackson Street. The box and an underground power line would provide electrical service for the garage. This came up at the previous council meeting, but it was delayed by Councilor Wayne Jenness whose district includes downtown. He questioned why this box hadn’t been placed on the lot the garage sits upon. He asked why the electrical service had to be placed on city-owned green space and not on the developer’s own parcel.

The Lupoli representatives never really answered that question in their comments on Tuesday. There was also a tinge of annoyance that anyone was even questioning them about it, but no councilors commented on that (assuming they even noticed it).

The garage project will be back before the council this coming Tuesday for a vote to modify the TIF agreement the city made with the developer. This “Tax Increment Financing” agreement provides property tax breaks to the developer in return for the developer’s promise to create new jobs as part of the project (i.e., the parking garage).   

******

The City Manager had a request to transfer $100,000 from the City Manager contingency fund to the overtime account for the DPW and for the Street Department. Given the number of motions councilors have made that call on the DPW to get more things done, it’s not surprising that the cost has increased too. Councilors voted unanimously for the transfer although both Councilors Gitschier and Corey Robinson were critical of how the money was being spent.

Another transfer shifted a total for $240,000 from the Municipal Facility Stabilization Fund to the schools for HVAC repairs ($130,000) and to the Pollard Memorial Library to repair the elevator ($210,000). Regarding the elevator, Councilor Vesna Nuon issued an “abandon hope all ye who enter here” alert that until the elevator is fully repaired no one should get in it unless they’re carrying a fully charged cell phone since the elevator breaks down so often, the likelihood of a passenger having to call the Fire Department to affect a rescue is quite high.

******

Last week I wrote about the four ballot questions in this fall’s election. I’m voting YES on Question 1 (millionaire income tax surcharge) and on Question 4 (drivers licenses for undocumented residents) but I was unsure about Question 2 (dental insurance) and Question 3 (liquor licenses). My approach to the two middle questions was to “follow the money.”

Thankfully, WBUR this week provided some good analysis of the liquor license item (Question 3). The question has been called a compromise because it both increases and decreases the number of liquor licenses a company may own. Specifically, it decreases the number of “full” licenses from the current 9 to 7. (A “full” license covers all beverages containing alcohol including so-called “hard” liquor whereas a “beer and wine” license allows the sale of just those two types of beverages). However, the measure also increases the total number of licenses one entity can hold to 18 which means that one entity could hold 7 full licenses and 11 beer and wine licenses or any other combination adding up to 18 (with 7 or fewer full licenses).

The Massachusetts Association of Package Stores is leading the YES on 3 campaign, while the Massachusetts Retailers Association is opposed to the measure. However, a Maryland-based company called Total Wine & More that has seven stores in Massachusetts has contributed $2mil for ads opposing Question 3.  

It seems like there’s more profit to be made from the sale of hard liquor than from beer and wine so big retailers want in on more of that revenue which is why they oppose dropping the number of full licenses. Small package stores would benefit from limiting how many large retail stores can have full licenses.

Personally, I don’t much care about this question one way or another. I don’t drink hard liquor, I rarely buy wine, and I will go to a local package store every four to six weeks to pick up a 12-pack of beer. If all else is equal, I’ll support the small local retailer, so I guess I’m a YES on question 3.

WBUR also takes a look at Question 2 which relates to the percentage of premiums dental insurers must devote to actual dental care as opposed to administrative costs. This question which seems to be a dispute between dentists and insurers about who gets how much money. Voting YES on this question would require insurers to spend 83% of all premiums collected on dental care whereas voting NO would leave things as they are with no minimum expenditure required. Proponents say passing this will provide better care to patients; opponents say it will raise the cost of insurance (or reduce what insurance covers thereby increasing out-of-pocket costs to patients).

In a fight between insurers and dentists, I’ll side with the dentists so I’m a YES vote on Question 2.

That makes it easy for me: it’s YES on all four ballot questions. Coincidentally, my ballot just arrived in the mail yesterday so now I can vote and put it back in the mail with plenty of time to spare.

******

Congratulations to Lowell Waterways Vitality Initiative for lighting up the Ouellette Bridge on Friday night. The event was streamed live (and is available for on demand replay) on the organization’s Facebook Page. In honor of this accomplishment, I’ve written a short blog post on richardhowe.com about the history of this bridge.